Colorado Avalanche / NHL

NHL lockout: Mood more grim than ever with no deal on horizon

TORONTO — A longtime NHL front-office executive, in a hallway Sunday at the Air Canada Centre, was asked how he was doing.

"Bored to tears," the team executive said.

With NHL employees prohibited from speaking openly about the ongoing lockout — under threat of a heavy fine from commissioner Gary Bettman — such not-for-attribution snippets are about all the media can get these days. The locked-out players have been more vocal, some taking to Twitter to chastise Bettman.

The public, though, seems not to care a whit about what either side in the dispute says anymore. That applies even in this hockey-crazed city, where the Maple Leafs have been selling out games forever despite not having had a playoff team since 2004. When Bettman's image was shown on the Jumbo-Tron on Sunday at the Legends Classic — with shots of him handing the Stanley Cup in 1996 to Avalanche Hall of Fame inductee Joe Sakic — boos filled the arena.

No one will know the effects of the lockout on attendance and television ratings until the NHL resumes. But if anecdotal evidence is one measure, it won't be pretty for a sport enduring its third lockout since 1994. Everybody, it seems, is thoroughly fed up with the fight between NHL owners and players, now arguing over a small percentage of revenues. That includes players who were still drawing NHL paychecks not too long ago.

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"They have to find a way to solve this. They absolutely have to," said former Avalanche winger Theo Fleury, who played Sunday's game as part of Hockey Hall of Fame weekend festivities.

Fleury gave a prediction that, if the sides don't agree to a deal that saves this season, should scare the wits out of any NHL fan. "If they don't do it (for this season), it's going to be two years probably they play again," he said.

Two years? Fleury and a couple of others who were asked Sunday believe that's possible. The doomsday scenario they can foresee would involve the NHL Players Association and owners trying to "blow up" their financial system entirely and essentially starting all over again. For the players, maybe that means trying to get the salary cap eliminated. For the owners, maybe that means having no more guaranteed contracts.

The sides met Sunday in New York, but talks broke off in less than an hour and the outlook seems dire. NHLPA boss Donald Fehr told reporters the owners are "completely unwilling" to budge and said Bettman told the NHLPA "we're past the point of any give and take."

Fleury indicated it's all posturing.

"Now that I'm in business myself, there's always a deal to be made, no matter what," Fleury said. "When a business like the NHL goes from $2 billion a year to $3.3 billion like it did, there's going to be some tough negotiating. It's a matter of finding some common ground and getting it done."

Bettman, incidentally, is slated to be in attendance Monday night at the Hall of Fame as part of induction ceremonies. Expect more boos.

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